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Sheikh Suleiman Anwar Bengharsa, head of the Islamic Jurisprudence Center in Clarksburg, Maryland gave a lecture in Toronto, Canada in 2010, in which he said that Muslims could only live in the land of the infidels under certain circumstances, one of which was to do da'wa. "When the caliphate is established, you need to pack your bags and go home," he said. In the lecture on the jurisprudence of interaction with non-Muslims, which was delivered at the Abu Huraira Center in Toronto and posted on YouTube in August 2010, Bengharsa stressed that historically, Islam had been spread by the sword and said that the purpose of jihad is to establish the law of Allah and that while you can’t force a person to believe in Allah, "you can force him to live by the shari'a."
Suleiman Anwar Bengharsa: "In a predominantly Islamic society, you should make the non-Muslim feel like he needs to become Muslim in order for him to have equal rights. It is important for the Muslim to make the non-Muslim believe that there is a benefit for the non-Muslim to become Muslim. One of the ways you do it is by the hadith that you just mentioned – and by the way, you are absolutely right that this is an authentic hadith. But the implementation of this hadith cannot... The Islamic scholars have said that it cannot be implemented in a society such as this, because this will bring, maybe, more difficulty to the Muslim communities or the Muslim individual if he did that based on that.
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"There was a time when this area that we call Turkey, there were no Muslims, there was no Islam, right? Then people came... In Turkey, in particular, it was not a result of merchants coming with da'wa. It was a result of jihad. Muslims came... People became Muslims as a result of the fact that Muslims came with a sword, and established shari'a, and as the result of the establishment of shari'a, many people found that there is a need to become Muslims in order to avoid strife. Now, your forefathers, if they were from there – because there is a chance they could be from Arabia too, you don’t know... They were Kurdish? Okay. Don’t tell anybody..."
Attendee: "I'll hide it..."
Suleiman Anwar Bengharsa: "I'm just joking, you know that. The benefit may not be at the time of the people [not] accepting Islam sincerely out of belief but rather out of fear. But the generations to come... Now you, as a Muslim, are happy that your forefathers accepted Islam, even though it may have been under the sword. Right? You are happy with that, no? Because you are happy with being..."
Attendee: "... A Muslim"
Suleiman Anwar Bengharsa: "Allah Akbar. Are you worried now about your forefathers having to be told to accept... Well, they were not told to accept Islam. There were conditions that existed according to shari'a that forced certain people, to avoid difficulty, to... For example, jizya is one of them, right? Jizya is one of them – paying this little taxation out of the people that are not from Islam. Why? Because it’s a price they pay for being protected by the Muslim authority.
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"The Quran says: 'Let there be no compulsion in the religion.' 'Let there be no compulsion in the religion' is a verse whereby... It is in what chapter? The Al-Baqarah chapter. Very good. It means that you cannot force a person to actually believe in Allah and His Messenger, but you can force the person to live by shari'a. The purpose of jihad for example... Can I say that word in Canada? You can't say it in the United States, I can tell you that much. The purpose of jihad is not to force people to convert to Islam – because as you said from the Quran: 'There is no compulsion in the religion.' – but it is to establish the law of Allah, because it brings about balance and justice for all creatures – Muslim and non-Muslim.
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"If Muslims can walk into a place, and establish shari'a without a drop of blood, then that is what should be done. We should not walk into a place, because the concept is that this is the way it has happened up until now. No. The establishment of shari'a... Sometimes the Muslims walked into or entered a village or an area, and they did not have to engage in any armed conflicts. The people said: 'Yes, we accept!'
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"There are some Muslims among us these days who want to go around and say: 'Oh, Islam was never spread by the sword.' That's a blatant lie. It was spread many times by the sword. The shari'a was spread by the sword. The implementation of shari'a was spread by the sword.
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"Strictly according to shari'a... We assume that we are living in some kind of caliphate situation, some kind of Islamic authority – even though it may be one spot, like Somalia, by the way... Yes, true. In certain parts of Somalia shari'a has been established. There is a shari'a authority in Somalia. At least most of the country is under certain people who have established shari'a.
"So under those circumstances, you would only be able to leave, to go to the land of disbelief, what they call 'abode of the infidels,' under certain circumstances: da'wa, and in some cases, if you don't find the cure for a sickness in your own area, and you have to go to the infidels, then you can go for a certain period of time to find a cure and then you can return... I mentioned da'wa, right? But even da'wa – you cannot go indefinitely and say: 'I am going for da'wa.' In the meantime, you're filling your belly and not doing anything. No, the Islamic authority will ask you to come back every so often, and then you have to report: How is your da'wa going? Do you have any witnesses to your da'wa? Tell us about it.
"Let's see... Passing through one place to go to another... Sometimes the Muslims had to go from the land of Islam to reach another land of Islam, and they might have had to go through... what? The land of the infidels. So there are circumstances under which a Muslim is allowed to leave and go. To get more sustenance is not one of them. You cannot say: 'Islamic authority, I am sorry, I am poor here in Somalia. I need to go to Canada. Can you allow me to go to Canada for a few months to make some money, and then come back over here?' The answer will be: 'No.'
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"Legally, in this country... There are certain things that are part of the legal framework of this country, whereby you can espouse ideas that the rest of the society doesn’t like, but just don’t break the laws – because then you will get into trouble. Do you follow?
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"Even though most Islamic scholars believe that the niqab is required for the women – it is a requirement, it is compulsory... Most scholars of Islamic jurisprudence prefer that a woman wears the niqab, [rather than] the hijab that we see here. These days we see a hijab on the head, and then we see tight jeans and tight shirts, and this person obviously does not know what hijab is. She thinks it is just something she wraps around her head. I'd like to wrap something around her head!
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"When the Caliphate is established, you need to pack your bags and go home, okay? You cannot say: 'I'm going to do da'wa, brothers in Somalia.' You Taliban in Afghanistan, don’t ask me to come back because I'm staying here. That would show hypocrisy on our part if we did that. Do you know something, brothers? This is a very unpopular thing to say. When the Taliban established the Islamic emirate in Afghanistan, the reason why it was easy to attack and get rid of them was because none of us went to live over there. Because if most of us said: 'Okay, they have established and Islamic state in Afghanistan, lets pack our bags and go' – and they were inviting us to do this... Most of us said: 'No, how am I going to eat in Afghanistan? Afghanis don’t have food.' God forbid! This is not a sign of sincerity. This is a sign of hypocrisy."
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